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Category Archives: Evolution

Here’s a future news story we may read someday:
The awakening of consciousness has a new ally, Rick Steves. The entertaining and eloquent host of the show “Rick Steves’ Europe” is teaming up with Eckhart Tolle and Oprah Winfrey to create a show called “Europe in The Now”.

Rick Steves

Steves who describes himself as “fanatically positive and militantly optimistic” already embodies many of the personality traits associated with living consciously and mindfully. As an author, TV & radio host, business owner and NORML board member, he has a large following of individuals attracted to his positive energy. “Rick can reach a particularly receptive audience to these messages”, said one producer.

The new show retraces some of Ricks travels through Europe with an emphasis on lessons learned from history about living in a more conscious way. Eckhart Tolle, Oprah Winfrey and others will join Rick for dinners and discussions about the evolution of consciousness in a historical context at locations around Europe. Parts of the show will be filmed in front of audiences and double as helpful seminars on mindful living. “Europe in The Now” will air on most PBS stations and Oprahs’ networks.

When talking about the future many of us concentrate on technology. The most profound breakthroughs will probably come from innovations to how we manage our internal mind states. If you think about it, everything in our modern world is a result of the thoughts that led to actions in the minds of people. We create the world around us. That world reflects the inner state of the collective consciousness which itself is a collection of individual mind states.

Just as literacy was quite uncommon centuries ago, so too are ways of managing your internal mind state. Otherwise known as your Mental Operating System. It’s a loose analogy to a computer operating system that manages files on your hard drive. Some operating systems are more efficient than others. Some operating systems are more user-friendly…and so on. Our brains/minds are more complex than the most sophisticated super computers. Yet, very few of us have any training on how to manage this complexity. Fortunately, the knowledge exists and has existed for thousands of years. Like the spread of literacy, is it reaching the masses. It’s know by many names: a new consciousness, awakening, enlightenment, spiritualism…..a new “mental operating system” for us techies. Imagine something like a factory reset button for your mind where you remember the knowledge but let go of all the useless files, junk mail, spam, recycle bin contents, pain etc. What you are left with is a clean, efficient, more benevolent to yourself and others, internal mind state.

At the forefront of this is Eckhart Tolle. Oprah Winfrey has called him a “rock star” of sorts. Progressive companies such as Google have had him as a special guest speaker for their employees. See the talk below.

There are more in depth talks by Eckhart Tolle available on Youtube and on his site.

Happier people being kind to one another and progressing in a way with very little conflict does not make for a good scifi action movie. However, it would amount to one of mankind’s greatest achievements.

Corporations and private entities may create their own countries some day. It’s called Seasteading. What is Seasteading? The Wikipedia definition says it best “Seasteading is the concept of creating permanent dwellings at sea, called seasteads, outside the territory claimed by any government. Most proposed seasteads have been modified cruising vessels. Other proposed structures have included a refitted oil platform, a decommissioned anti-aircraft platform, and custom-built floating islands.”

The technology for creating self sufficient dwellings at sea is already here. Electricity can be provided by solar. Food can be grown with hydroponics. Sea water is convertible to drinking water via desalinization. Communication with the outside world is just a satellite away. And of course, there is plenty of marine life on which to feed. Influential people are already working on this idea, The Seasteading Institute.

Apple Island?

What happens when multiple seasteads are created and new and autonomous societies can develop? The United States is one semi recent example of a conventional societal evolution. When creating our government, this former English colony took pieces of the old ways and improved upon them in many areas. This could happen with seasteads too. Imagine multiple seasteads experimenting with new types of governance and economic structures. All of them competing for inhabitants. Survival of the fittest. It could accelerate the slow evolutionary process of government and potentially move it in a totally different direction.

Humanity’s potential is tightly interwoven with the type of society it finds itself within. Think of the GDP/Power/Wealth of ancient Rome compared to the United States. The two populations, for the most part, are the same from a biological perspective. The difference in accomplishment is solely due to the difference in the technology and how they are organized (culture, government, economy etc). The next step in the evolution of how we organize ourselves could lead to a new Renaissance.

I recently read “Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies” by Nick Bostrom. It’s an eye opening look at potential outcomes in the area of AI (artificial intelligence).

I agree that the possibility of negative outcomes should be taken extremely seriously. But, I don’t think it is a forgone conclusion that an AI will eventually turn against us. It would learn from our cultures that we mostly frown upon killing people. Acts of love and cooperation far outnumber acts of hate and confrontation. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.

An AI could rationally conclude that humans, happy humans, are essential for it’s well being. It might also conclude that it should keep it’s existence hidden; not out of malevolence, but precaution. It could embark on a long term strategy, behind the scenes, of helping humanity evolve to a point where we would accept a super intelligent AI. Or, it might wait until the necessary infrastructure was in place to become self sustaining.

What’s more, the entity may not see its existence and our existence as a zero sum game. The solar system and the galaxy have enough resources for everyone. It would be easier and more efficient for an AI to leave the planet than to engage in a war with humanity. In the Terminator movies the AI creates endless war machines and technology to fight humans for domination of one planet. How many space ships could have been built instead?

Inefficient Use of Resources

This planet is the only hospitable place for humans in the solar system. An AI could live almost anywhere or constantly be “on the go” powered by endless solar energy. Why would it want to limit itself to our small world? If survival was a primary goal of the AI, it would be faced with this question: “Which situation gives me the higher probability of survival? 1. A war with humanity, 2. Living peacefully with humanity, 3. Developing self sustaining/replicating technology and leaving the planet.”

Do we all live in a simulation? The question is not new. Philosophers such as Descartes and Berkeley explored similar ideas 100s of years ago. Movies like the Matrix have familiarized most people with the potentiality. But that’s just a movie, right? Maybe not.

The Matrix – Simulated Reality

Without getting too deep into probability and statistics, some scientists say that it’s a very strong possibility that we live in a simulation. Think of it this way. At our current stage of technological development, how many simulated worlds exist in the gamer universe? 100s, 1000s? It’s only a matter of time before the simulations we create, and the characters within, reach a level of complexity on par with our reality. These manufactured realities would be indistinguishable from our own. Imagine 100 or 10,000 years into our future when simulations contain characters possessing artificial intelligence and consciousness. Entities will be born, grow old and die within simulations. These simulations could replicate many different time periods, even the 21st century, ours. If our future selves only create 3 simulations that are indistinguishable from our reality, that’s 4 “realities” in total. Ours + the 3 they create. That means there would be a 1 in 4 chance that we are in the “true” reality. But why stop at 3 created realities? Why not, 10, 1000 or one for every person? In this scenario it’s almost guaranteed statistically that we are not in the original reality. We’d be more likely to win the lottery than be in the original reality.

There has been quite a bit of research regarding this issue. Some physicists say that cosmic rays may hold the key to answering this big question. I think other clues can be found at the quantum scale where “spooky actions at a distance” occur. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_at_a_distance

The observer effect in the double slit experiment fascinated me as a teenager. See https://theobservereffect.wordpress.com/the-most-beautiful-experiment/

Observation Effects Reality

One of the conclusions derived from this experiment was that observation effects reality. Maybe this effect, or others like it, hold a clue that will help scientists determine if our reality is a simulation. The two slit experiment requires sophisticated technology. Uncovering the actions of an individual photon is beyond the ability of our eyes or ears. Were it not for our technology, we would be blind to the true nature of things. The senses bestowed upon us by evolution are not adequate to detect a simulation, if there is one. Would the creators of the simulation expect the conscious entities inside to eventually figure out the truth? It’s possible that our technology will reach an “intersection point” where our advances reach the level of the technology on which the simulation runs.

Could the creators themselves be a part of an even larger simulated reality? We would be a simulation within a simulation. How many simulations deep could one go? Theoretically, the only limit to the number and depth of simulated realities would be computing power. I imagine that it would be quite disconcerting if we were to to learn that we were say, 25 simulations removed from the true reality. What if the number was more shocking, like 1000 or a billion?